Invisible Nothing
by Wilona Riva
Summary: Originally part of the "Woman of Years" collection.  Summary: Jazz can see Danny, but no one else.
1. Invisible

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

* * *

_Originally part of the "Woman of Years" collection. Summary: Jazz can see Danny, but no one else._

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**Invisible**

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"Morning, Mom; Morning, Dad; Morning, Danny," I cheerily greet my family, as I enter our sunny kitchen. I say sunny, cause Dad set up a sun lamp over the kitchen table that was emitting eerie green sparks.

"Uh, who, Jazzypants?" Dad asked, staring at me liked I'd grown two heads.

I stared back at my family. "Oh. My."

"If you finish that statement, Jazz," Danny teased. "Mom and Dad will think you're cracking up."

I swallowed. Danny was right, of course.

"Yes, of course, Danny," I answered, sitting down to the pancakes Dad, mercifully, had not scarfed them all up-excuse me-inhale. Mom could've married a vacuum cleaner and not have known the difference.

"Jazz, who are you talking to?" Mom asked, more than a bit concerned.

"No one," I mumbled.

"What is going on, Danny?" I hissed on the way to school. "Mom and Dad were acting as if you weren't there."

Danny shrugged. "Side effects from being a half-ghost, I guess."


	2. Glassy Bubbles

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Glassy Bubbles**

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"Morning, Jazz. Morning, Danny," greeted a very scary sight when I walked into the doors of the school's drama department. It was the one class I shared with Danny and his girlfriend, Sam, the goth girl who was smiling at me.

"How does she know I'm here?" Danny wondered.

"You're visible in the mirror," she said, when I repeated Danny's question. It was an odd-shaped silver framed piece with glassy bubbles dotting the corners.

"That's weird," Danny said. "I can't be seen or heard by anyone, but a weird-looking mirror shaped like a fish can show my reflection."

"That's life for you," I replied. Sam nodded.

"Okay, so you're both invisible and non-auditory to anyone except for me," I said. "Did you run afoul of a ghost or any Fenton inventions last night?"

"Not that I'm aware of," came the reply. "Mrs. Dabathis is calling you guys up to the stage."

"You're in this class too," I snapped.

"No, I'm not," he replied, as I walked up to the stage and took my seat. "She skipped me on the roll."

"Good morning, Jazz, how is Danny doing today?" Mrs. Dabathis asked, as I took my seat.

"He's fine. That weird fish-shaped mirror with the glassy bubbles shows his reflection, but for some weird reason, only I can see or hear him away from it."

"That's because he's a ghost, you dork," Dash hooted from two rows away. "All you Fentons are weirdos and freaks."

"Mr. Baxter, we do not use the "w" or the "f" words in this class. Miss Fenton is eccentric, if any thing else. She talks to her muse, which keeps her creative juices flowing. That's more than I say for any of you other dunderheads. Now, I believe we were discussing the backdrops for the spring play..."

"I believe you," Sam leaned over and whispered. "Danny is real and we have to prove it."

"Somehow," he said, from my other side, whipping out a small notebook he carried. I could make out some of the poetry he was always writing. One in particular caught my eye.

"Danny, where did you find this?" I exclaimed, grabbing his notebook, which became visible in my hand. Along with the poem, he had done some exotic drawing of a jungle temple and a marble statue of a humanoid ghost goddess with three jewels in her forehead. "This could solve all our problems."

"Miss Fenton, that's excellent work. I'll make a copy of it and the rest of you can get to work producing it. Writers, attention please!" Mrs. Dabathis whipped the book out of my hand.

Danny facepalmed "Way to go, Jazz."


	3. Fish Mirror

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Fish Mirror**

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Maddie couldn't remember when the mirror came into her possession. It was silvery hued, fish-shaped, and had beautiful glass bubbles decorating the edges. The oddest quality about it was that it didn't reflect ordinary objects. She peered closer into it, noting as if something strange was floating just out of the corner of her eyes, then she saw him, just for an instant.

She whirled around. No one in the hall except her.

She looked back into the mirror and saw the boy the again. He didn't move away this time. He looked surprised to see her. She smiled.

"You must be Danny," she said, thinking back to something Jazz had said that morning. Her daughter was off at the library, saying that Danny didn't feel like tagging along. She had just shrugged it off, till she saw the boy.

He closed his mouth and nodded.

"And you are a ghost?"

He nodded his head, then sharply shook it in negation.

"Okay, not a ghost, but not human, but something in between?"

His eyes lit up and he nodded.

"And somehow you're stuck in between this world and the next, and only Jazz can see and hear you, but this mirror can show your reflection," she stated. "Why choose our family to haunt?"

He pulled out a small notebook and a pen from the back pocket of his baggy jeans and scribbled something on it. He held it up to the mirror and Maddie read:

_Not my blasted fault. I woke up this morning like this, Mom. It's like my whole existence was erased. And how did that mirror find its way here; we just saw it in the drama department at school?_

Maddie was shocked. "You're my son?"

_Yes. I really don't know what happened to me or how I got like this, but Jazz says the picture and the poems may have a clue. I think the mirror is linked as well._

"Show me," she demanded. Something tangible was placed in her hands. A small spiral bound notebook was open to a jungle scene with a strange statue with three jewels in its forehead. Maddie thought it might have been some ancient goddess that ghosts once worshiped. She read two of the three poems scrawled in the margins, then gasped.

"Danny?"

He looked at her expectantly.

"You're not real."

"This projection of you is just your soul trying to reach out for help. Your body is stuck wherever this place is." She tapped the notebook. "Because you're half ghost, you unconsciously projected your human form to the only people who could help you. You're more than likely trapped in your ghost form. I need to see it, please. I promise, I won't kill you or anything."

Danny hesitated for a moment. Could he still become Phantom? He hadn't tried all day, but was it worth the cost of his life? Well, she did promise.

He met her eyes in the mirror and slowly reached inside himself for the cold spot that housed his icy core.

Maddie watched, fascinated that this humanest of human children slowly began to glow white around the center of his frame. The light materialized into rings which began to move slowly up and down to reveal a negative image of himself, with a jumpsuit, not unlike she and Jack wore. His color scheme seem to be black and white, only to be broken by the blazing emerald green of his eyes, which were now looking at the ground.

"This is fascinating, Danny," she said, feeling the notebook taken from her hand. "What is your name in this form? Inviso-Bill?"

_Gah! I really need better PR. No, my name is Danny Phantom, though most people call me Phantom. Before all this happened, I was manipulated by several villains who either framed me or manipulated me with mind-controlling ghost artifacts forcing me to steal for them. You and Dad hated me and were determined to "rip me apart molecule by molecule." That's why I hid what I was from you guys. I was scared. I am scared. I'm sorry. I didn't do all those things on purpose. I'm just trying to help._

Maddie's motherly instincts kicked in. "I understand, Danny. We'll keep this between me, you and Jazz. Anyone else know about this?"

_Sam._

"The goth girl Jazz hangs out with sometimes?"

_Yes. She's dreamy. Uh, pretend I didn't write that, please. I really don't need Jazz teasing me on that._

Maddie laughed. "Okay, Danny. We'll have to work on this tomorrow. Jazz should be home in a few minutes and I've to get dinner ready. Jack's out of town on a call."

_Okay._

His image flickered, then was gone. Maddie wasn't surprised, to say the least, to discover that she had a son who was a half-ghost. She'd seen freakier things in her college days.


	4. Nothing's Touch

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Nothing's Touch**

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Danny stared down at the three poems written in his barely legible handwriting. Was it possible what Mom had said? How had this happened to him? He knew for a fact he hadn't gone to Clockwork and tried to change the past again; he'd learned his lesson very well from the last time.

What had happened? If he was just a projection of his soul, where was the real him? The fish mirror gleamed; Danny thought he saw something shimmer just out of sight within its glass for just an instant.

He looked down at the poems once more and read:

_My soul lies in the realm of the goddess of fishes_

_In the shadows of the deep_

_Should I wake her from death to grant my wishes_

_My soul in slumber shall sleep._

"But what could I have been wishing for?" he wondered.

The second poem was even more confusing:

_A child half-ghost_

_When needed the most._

_Hidden in the copper tomb_

_His immortal soul and womb._

The third poem, written in tiny letters in engraved on the woman's sceptor, read:

_The Midnight Pleiades_

_Bow to Tethys and the moon_

_Wearing Orion's belt._

He turned and faced the fish mirror. "I know you're there watching," he told whatever was spying on him. "I'm sorry for whatever it was I did. Can you show me?"

**All you had to do was ask, child.**


	5. Filled with Emptiness

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Filled with Emptiness**

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Danny sniffled a bit and stepped closer to the mirror. "What did I do?" he asked it.

**You did nothing, child. It was another who gave you to the goddess. Step within and I will show you; you will be returned when the story's thread is woven.**

"Alright," the boy whispered, not knowing if the thing in the mirror could be trusted entirely.

**Then come, child.**

The mirror rippled like the Fenton Portal, causing the boy to hesitate for a moment, then a fleeting look of determination crossed his face and he plunged inside its swirling vortex.

* * *

Maddie came back down the hall and saw the last of the mirror's rippling surface. "Danny?"

No answer from the half-ghost child.

She sighed. "He must be off crying bitterly at his situation." She looked at the mirror and thought she saw something glittering in the corner of her eye; it was just the light glinting on the fish bubbles in the mirror's corners, she decided. She'd wait until Jazz got home so they could all sit down and figure this thing out.

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**This is where it began, ghost child.**

Danny stepped out into the picture in his notebook. He saw the jungle, the temple, and the odd ghost goddess statue.

**It is the temple of Tethys Pleiades, the seventh sister, ghost child.** **And here is the one who sought to wake my mistress.**

Danny gulped when he saw it was Skulker, who wore a very strange belt of three glittering stars. "The Belt of Orion," he whispered, thinking back to the third poem.

**Yes, now watch.**

Skulker touched each of the glittering stars in the belt in a peculiar order: first, the middle one twice, then the first thrice, and the last once. "O, Great Tethys of the Icthys, I, a humble hunter, come to thee to beg thy aid in catching my prey."

_And what will you give me in return, impertinent child?_ Danny heard the goddess stir.

"I will give you the prey that I seek," Skulker replied, bowing his metal head low.

_Why would I be interested in such a lowly creature?_

"He is a phantomic child," Skulker answered the goddess' soft whisper. "He is a half-human creature who dwells in the mortal world. He is growing in great strength and power. I have sworn to have his pelt to adorn my wall."

_And so you wish for the power to kill the poor child?_

"Yes," Skulker admitted.

_I will give you enough power to catch the boy, hunter, but you will not kill him. You have promised him to my service. He will be entombed in copper until his expiration, then he will serve me until eternity ends. Go, for he is in your grasp._

**Thus, it happened that you sensed him while you slept and tranformed, but the hunter was too quick. Using the power of the stars of the deep, you were bound and handed over to the goddess. Placed within the copper tomb, your very existence was wiped out. Very soon, time will run short for you.**

"How much time, do I have left?" Danny asked, as the mirror portal swirled around him, returning him to the hallway of the Fenton home.

**Until the first stars shine. I am sorry this has happened to one so young, child, but I also welcome you as one fellow servant of the goddess to the next.**

Danny didn't know what to respond, but he bowed to the mirror and thanked it. He walked down the stairs and into the living room, and sat down at the kitchen table. He looked up at the clock. 5 pm. Dark wasn't for another three hours; Jazz was due home soon.

Time was very short indeed.


	6. Pair of Beads

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Pair of Beads**

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Jazz walked into the kitchen and saw Danny sitting at the kitchen table, slumped over, his head lying on folded arms. "You've been sleeping all this time?" she asked, causing him to jump up in fright.

"Jazz, is that you?" Maddie called from downstairs.

"Yeah, I'm talking to Danny."

"Good, I'll be right up."

"She saw me in the mirror," Danny said, blue eyes red-rimmed from crying. "You were right that the fish mirror was linked to all this mess."

"How so?" Jazz asked, when something caught her eye. "Hold still, Danny."

Maddie chose that moment to enter the kitchen and find her daughter searching for something in thin air, a little above one of the kitchen chairs. "Danny?"

"He's got something in his hair," she explained, then cried out sharply as it something had bit her. Two tiny prinpricks of blood dotted her fingers.

"What happened?" Danny asked, as she rushed to the sink to wash off the blood and Maddie dug in the right hand cabinet for the first aid kit.

"Your hair has grown to about shoulder-length since this morning," Jazz said, while Maddie daubed the cut with peroxide. "There are two braids framing your face and each is sporting two wicked little silver-shaped fish. They bit me when I touched them. Your hair has just turned white and green is beginning to seep into your eyes. I think you're turning into your ghost form very slowly."

Danny looked up at the clock. It read 5:45pm. "I found out what happened to me, today," he announced, then proceeded to tell them precisely what the mirror had shown him. "I have until the stars come out, which about 8 pm."

"7 pm, Danny," Maddie corrected, when Jazz translated. "You're forgetting Daylight Savings Time ended."

"Spring forward, Fall back," Jazz reminded him in a sing-song voice."

"Oh, yeah," he wanted to face palm. "I forgot." While he was speaking, his clothes transformed into a his jumpsuit and his eyes turned fully emerald green. Jazz gasped.

"I'm fully ghost now, I take?" Danny asked.

"Yes," Jazz said, as Maddie finished wrapping her hand in gauze. "Where is Dad? Shouldn't he be here listening to all this?"

"He's gone to Elmerton to see about a haunted highrise," her mother replied. "I've already taken liberty at stocking the Specter Speeder with supplies. All we need is something of Danny's to be able to track him to where he is entombed."

"My notebook," Danny suggested, which Jazz translated. "If I have it on me now, it's reasonable to say, I have it with me there."

"We have that and the Booomerang," Jazz added. "It's still keyed into Danny's ectosignature."

"When all this is over with, I want the full story of how you became half-ghost, young man," Maddie told him sternly.

"If any of us remember this," Danny told her. "We've wasted another ten minutes."

The clock on the wall showed it was 5:55 pm.

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**Author's Note: So in reality, Danny has sixty-five minutes before he dies entombed withing the goddess' copper casket. November is the best time to see the Pleiades, that's why I chose to make set this story in late fall and gave it as a surname to the fish goddess. They have nothing else to do with the story.**


	7. Fury and Judgment

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Fury and Judgment**

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All three of them could tell the huge white ghost was pissed. He was at least twice the height of Maddie, with pupiless green eyes, and looked like a gangster from the 1930's. "Humans in the Ghost Zone are against the rules."

The humans in the vehicle shivered, along with someone glowing very faintly. He narrowed his eyes as the shimmering seemed to solidify into a boy in his early teens on the cusp of ghosthood. His eyes widened when he saw the silvery beads in the boy's hair.

He shrank down into a normal size and phased into the vehicle. "So the seventh sister has claimed another victim," he drawled. "How did this happen, boy?"

"You can see him?" Jazz gasped.

"Very faintly," the ghost replied. "The name is Walker, ma'am. I am sorry for that, but really humans shouldn't be traversing in our demenses."

"You're the Warden, aren't you? The one who safeguards the Ghost Zone," Maddie guessed, placing the Speeder on autopilot and turning around to face the ghost, one hand on her ecto-pistol.

Walker eyed her nervously, knowing on instinct, she was a huntress. When he turned back, the boy was gone. "Where is he?"

Maddie looked to Jazz, who shook her head. "He's not there any more. Danny's gone."

Walker pinched the bridge of his nose. Like he didn't have enough trouble to deal with every day. "All ghosts know of the seventh sister. You, talk, (Jazz), while she drives (Maddie). Take a right at this next floating island..."

Jazz and Maddie filled him in on Danny's story, the fish mirror, and other strange things they had connected without the ghost child's notice. Walker was amazed to find that a half-ghost could have made such an enemy from a puny ghost like Skulker, who was currently residing in his prison, serving a sentence for stealing the Belt of Orion.

"And how do you propose to rescue the boy from Tethys Pleiades?" he asked.

"Bargain with her," Maddie answered, taking a left at Ghost Writer's library. "I am Danny's mother, or was, before he was wiped from existence. Any sign of him, Jazz?"

"No, Mom," she said. "I think with so little time left, that, he's gone back to wherever he's entombed."

"How much time is left?" Walker demanded.

"About 10 minutes," came the reply.

"Enough time, go straight, full speed when I tell you," Walker said. "We only consult the Clockwork Chronos when the emergency is dire. This is one of them."

"Are we going to be punished for breaking and entering the Ghost Zone, Mr. Walker, sir?" Jazz asked, thinking back to earlier.

"No," Walker replied grimly. Your brother's very existence is at stake, and all of the Ghost Zone has been sworn to protect him."

"Why?" Maddie wanted to know.

"We don't know," came the terse reply. "That is why Skulker has not killed the boy as of yet and made the desperate bargain with the goddess. He, too, is under the oath. He will serve a double sentence for his crime."

Maddie and Jazz exchanged worried glances. What was it about Danny that made him so special to the ghosts?

* * *

Author's Note: **Changeling** will be updated later this evening. I didn't have time to get the new chapter typed out this morning. Sorry.


	8. Chronos

Invisible Nothing

By: Wilona Riva

Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom.

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**Chronos**

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"I am going to have to reevaluate all my research," Maddie said, looking around the room. Everywhere she turned, were clocks of all shapes and sizes. There was even a spiral sundial.

"The noise is deafening," Jazz grumbled. "How does one stand it?"

"That my dear is the staircase of Ahaz; I managed to save it just before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians; as for the noise, one gets accustomed to it over the centuries," the gentle voice of the Clockwork Chronos washed over them.

All three visitors turned and saw a young man morph in the virtual image of Father Time sans the scythe. He was a tall ghost with medium blue skin, pupiless red eyes with a scar bisecting one, and wore a blue cloak fastened over one shoulder by a clockwork gear.

Maddie raised an eyebrow at all the watches and noticed the large pendulum in his chest. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

"It is the same as the clocks in the hall," he replied. "Come, you came to ask for aid for Daniel, not admire my home. Walker, the Crown of Niobe is in that chest over yonder. It will be more effective than the Belt of Orion."

The Ghost Zone Warden bowed and did as he was asked.

Three portals appeared at a wave of Clockwork's hand. One depicted a human Danny zipping up a jumpsuit, the middle showed him slowly rising from a copper tomb in his ghost form, and the last was a milky pearl swirl. "These portals show the past, present, and future."

"How come we can't see the last?" Jazz asked.

"The future is tangible, always flowing, not set in stone. Daniel cannot be saved, for the bargain Skulker made with Tethys Pleaides will hold true. However, she understands very little of the current human world."

"My baby," Maddie began to sob, completely out of character for she was the strong one in the family. "Tethys wiped him out of existence."

"I know," Clockwork said, "but a new history can be made."

"How am I going to explain this to my husband?" Maddie moaned.

"That I cannot tell you," Clockwork replied. "Ah, I see you have it, Walker."

"Yes," Walker answered, "how much time is left."

"None," Clockwork replied. "The boy cannot be saved, but it is possible to return him to some form of life."

"From what this young woman has told me," Walker said, pointing at Jazz, "I can take the boy under my wing and train him as a bounty hunter. He is quite good."

"Agreed," the Clockwork Chronos murmured. "The boy will be full ghost, but will retain the ability to become take a human form. I am sorry, dear lady, but this is the best I am able to do for him."

Walker placed the Crown of Niobe on the head of the huntress. "You are a queen amongst your own kind," he whispered. "Be strong for the boy's sake. Time is past for him, time will come again."

Clockwork's future portal opened into a jungle temple courtyard. Danny was sitting at the feet of the ghost goddess deeply absorbed in thought, rapture on his face. "Go," he told them. "All is as it should be."

Maddie, Jazz and Walker bowed in respect to the Time Master and walked foward resolutely into the future.

"At last he is coming into his own," Clockwork murmured, adjusting a knob on his staff.

"Orion, Niobe, Tethys, Pleiades," Jazz mused out loud.

"What?" Walker demanded, turning around.

"Just the heavy use of the human mythos in the Ghost Zone," she replied. "It's unusual."

"Not so," Walker answered. "Your world is riddled with our legends, our heroes. Your gods and goddesses were powerful ancient spirits who roamed freely between our worlds. You have heard of Chronos, surely?"

"Yeah, the King of the Titans who swallowed his kids because of some silly prophecy that one would supplant him, which was Zeus, by the way."

"Yes," Walker told her slyly. "And you just met him."

"That was Zeus?"

"No, that was Chronos, also called Saturn," Walker replied.

"WHAT?"

Maddie laughed at her daughter's shocked cry of outrage. "What does the Crown of Niobe do?" she inquired of the ghost warden.

"The Belt of Orion permits the supplicant to bargain with the goddess of the deep sea stars," came the explanation. "It allows the wearer to take one item from the goddess' realm as a memory offering."

"One item?" Maddie's heart soared.

"One item," Walker confirmed.

* * *

"Phantom," came the soft whisper. "Tell me of the human world."

The child seated at her feet, told her of his family, of his friends, his enemies, of the people he interacted with daily, and of the blue sky, the whisper of the wind, and of the warmth of the sun. "I'm going to miss those things," he finished.

"Then go home," came the goddess' voice. "You are to learn of the life above and then return to me."

"I don't exist," he protested.

"Is there not one who can see or hear you?"

"Yeah, Jazz."

"Do you not have my mirror?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you here, my child? I cannot give you back to the world above, but you can bring it to me."

"Thank you!" Danny cried, hugging the statue, which blinked in surprise. "Hey, you're real, not made of stone."

Tethys threw her head back and laughed. "Oh little one, it has been eons since I lived. You are the light of the world; that is why all ghosts are sworn protect you. And there are two who have chosen a very wise guide to show you the way home."

Danny turned and gasped. "Mom? Jazz?" His mother was wearing a beautiful platinum circle in her rich auburn hair, while Jazz and the white ghost with them whispered back in forth.

"Go to them," Tethys Pleaides told him. "Go with my blessing. Live."


End file.
